Chapter Sixteen

It was rare to have all of Yuma's prisoners gathered in one place. With every man, even those that survived the escape attempt, sitting in the dining room surrounded by armed guards, they figured this wasn't going to be good. That thought worsened further when the warden himself walked into the room and stepped up to a podium. Even though his suit was black, no one mistook Hermiston for a preacher. He was too dark, too cold, and somehow, he looked eviler than the real murderers and thieves that were in front of him.

Pounding a gavel for far too long, Hermiston finally let it go still, but then rattled a long note through his throat as if purposely delaying his speech. It did make several prisoners tremble, so for that, the warden would claim victory this day. And every day after.

"I've thought long and hard about how to punish you prisoners. I've come to the conclusion that there really isn't anything fitting for the damage that has been done. You all deserve death. But considering you all were sent to prison, each and every one of you deserved death long before now. As the warden of this prison, I cannot give you death. But I can give you what's left of Yuma."

"Dadgum. I reckon he does know that Yuma's worse than death."

Davey gave him a nudge. "Shhh."

"Since I learned that this plan for a mass escape traveled by word of mouth, that will be the first thing to get cut off. For an entire month, you will talk to no one," the warden said, and sensing the area of the mumbling, Hermiston looked right at Jess. "You will also see no one outside of your cells. After this meeting, you will know only the men in your close proximity. The only exception to this rule is those that get assigned to work duty. Otherwise, there will be no recreation, no gathering in the dining room, nothing where you men can socialize. If you are caught talking, no matter the circumstance, you will be immediately removed from your cell and whipped."

Hermiston's palms were given a smack across the podium. It was as if the warden dropped the dreaded whip in front of them, crackling with lightning's speed over a hundred spines to permanently silence them.

While the bodily flinches rippled across the room, Jess' eyes wandered away from Hermiston's salt-and-pepper mustache to find the solid blue. He had watched Slim come into the dining hall and sit down so it wasn't a long trek to find him, and when Jess caught his position, he realized Slim was looking just as hard at him. There was a furrow to Slim's brow, a worry that Jess didn't like.

His mouth formed a silent, "What?"

A finger up to his mouth, Slim shook his head.

Jess nodded his understanding. His partner was warning him to behave and like an insolent child, Jess couldn't help but smirk. But then stepping into his view was Hogan, pacing back and forth between the rows of prisoners. The memory of their first day at Yuma suddenly strong, Jess' backside began to tingle. That wasn't much of a leather strap that had reddened both cheeks. A bullwhip would do a lot more damage, maybe even dig as deeply as the shovel that had swiped a large part of Jess' belly in half. His back might be stronger, but Jess wouldn't want to know what he would look like after a dozen or more lashes.

It brought him even more pain to think what Slim would look like after such a tool was finished with him. That thought was enough to do it. Giving Slim another nod, Jess gave his silent promise. He would be good.

Not finished yet, Hermiston gave his throat another obnoxious clearing. "It's going to take a week or more to get materials hauled in to fix the wall that was destroyed. But those that are hired to bring it in will get to ride back out. It's going to be on a large number of you prisoners to rebuild that wall. But don't think it's going to be a reprieve from sitting in your cells all day and night. The work will be long and hard and hot. You'll suffer until you beg to die. And if you beg hard enough, the guards just might oblige."

"Dadgum."

So much for his promise. Failing within a minute after giving it, Jess quickly looked for Slim, but Dorcy and whoever else manned that section of the prison was already getting that row of men in line to return to their cells. Since Slim was the first to move, he would never see the blush marring Jess' cheeks. It was obvious by the rows of prisoners starting to leave that Hermiston was done with his speech, and a moment later, it was just as obvious that his orders were meant to be kept.

How Jess' mutter didn't get the attention of the closest guard he wouldn't know, but the man standing ten feet from him was getting the wrath Jess should have gotten. All Frisbee did was sneeze.

The guard turned into a lion and roared in Frisbee's face. "You spitting on me?"

"N…n…no, Sir," he sputtered.

"You're not supposed to talk! Mr. Hermiston, you want Frisbee on the whipping posts?"

Every breath held, every eye turned toward the warden.

"I said no talking, no matter the circumstance," Hermiston answered, his pause not to think, but to encourage the room's fear to grow. "Give him seven lashes."

While there was cause to wonder about the strange twinkle in the warden's eyes, Frisbee would have been the first to admit that this wasn't a planned event to convince every man to keep quiet from that moment on. Being carted away, Frisbee's limbs flailed in a desperate attempt to avoid his punishment. That scene sticking harder than how a pincushion was jabbed, it would serve as a constant reminder of what Yuma's prisoners were up against. But then when Frisbee returned to his cell with more than blood oozing from his back, their reality was made rather clear.

No one would be exempt from the whip. No one.

They lived in constant fear. While exhaustion tugged heavily on each eyelid, none of the prisoners wanted to sleep at night, lest a snore be mistaken for a word or a dream pull a few notes out of a throat. Jess didn't think he talked in his sleep, but when every dream had Slim's face in it, stuck behind an iron door instead of being safe among home's green hills, Jess woke with a snap, sweat raining down his body that he had called out to his partner outside of the nightmare. While he hadn't been pulled out of his cell and tied to the whipping posts yet, Jess joined those around him with forced insomnia. Keeping his eyes open as long as possible, the nod would eventually come, followed by the same vivid scene that came close to emitting a scream.

Like right now.

Teeth tearing into his pillow to keep his inner pain locked away, Jess stared into the darkness. If he could trust the number of fingers he had folded into each palm as he watched every midnight come and go, it had been ten days since the no talking order had started. That left twenty. With such a long haul yet to endure, Jess didn't know how they were going to make it. While every voice was cut off except from the guards, it was the other noises inside of Yuma that created something worse than a cringe. They dripped, they plopped, they tapped, and every single mysterious blip tinkered with his mind, increasing the irritation until even his own breathing came close to making Jess go mad. Likely everyone else in the prison experienced the same. The longer this went on, someone was going to snap. Someone was going to cry. Maybe that someone would be him. And what if that someone was Slim?

The worry coming over him with rolls of shivers, Jess burrowed into his folded arms. No one in his corridor other than Frisbee had been whipped, but they heard the stories, direct from the guards' mouths. The worst one came yesterday, when one man couldn't take the punishment and died. And as if they wanted to thrust a dagger into a pair of men's hearts, the guards purposely said he was from Yuma's other side.

When the guards were finished gloating over the previous day's happenings out on the whipping posts, Jess had watched Davey step up to the iron rows and pressed his face against them. Having the same fear, Jess had almost done the same, but he kept his position on his cot. He knew there was no use to ask. Even if he could tug on a guard's sleeve and silently plead for the name, Jess knew they were too brutal to offer it. Unless one of them was called out to work duty to do the burying, they wouldn't know whose life Yuma had now claimed.

The darkness pressing hard around him, Jess closed his eyes to it and breathed his constant prayer. As long as it wasn't Slim or Deuce, he could endure this place, this silence. He had to.

Nodding off, the dreams were held back until sunlight started its stream in the windows. Startled by the sound of Slim's voice, Jess fell from his bunk and looked up. It was only morning. It wasn't Slim calling him from the top of a golden stairwell.

Jess' eyelids slowly drifting back down in relief, they were quick to fly wide again. The door banging open with such a loud clap, multiple hands rose to cover their sensitive ears. But that blast was nothing. The following shout had an even louder ring.

"Work duty!"

Eager to get out of his confinement, even if it was to be subjected to heavy labor, every man rushed to his door and clung to the bars. Some even went to the full length to show their desire and formed their faces into that of a puppy dog. It wouldn't have mattered if the guard took the time to look the begging group over. He had a list.

"The materials have arrived so Hermiston said it's time to get that wall repaired. The following men will start work on the rebuild. Jenson, Irvine, Shultz and Harper. To the rest that I didn't call, don't be jealous. Tomorrow will be a different round of men."

Shackles on, Jess followed the guard to the whipping grounds. He wouldn't be the only prisoner that locked eyes with the posts. There was no one getting his back stripped, but the thought of seeing someone there was strong enough to fully visualize two arms spread wide with blood sliding down the man's bare skin. To the other men, maybe they saw themselves hanging there. To Jess, he saw Slim in that position and it sickened him to the point where bile began to rise. And then as Jess took another step, the image became real. But he wouldn't vomit. In fact, Jess' mouth did a strange thing and lifted each corner to smile.

Hands and feet taking on a rattling clank, Jess took a forward leap. Slim!

A gun poked at his nose. "Slow down, Harper! Everyone will get his share of work."

Emotions immediately subdued, Jess nodded and then followed the direction of the guard until he was shown where they wanted him to work. This being the first he had seen the wall's damage, Jess' mouth formed a whistle but didn't do more than let some astonished air through. No wonder the escape attempt had been so loud. Dynamite, likely more than one stick, had chewed a hole large enough a locomotive could have rolled through.

Too bad he and Slim didn't have an express ticket that day. By now they could be doing something easy like branding cattle or breaking mustangs, not getting ready to break their backs and drain their bodies of sweat over a pile of lumber and nails.

"Hands out, Harper," the guard said, and at the obedience in front of him, he took the manacles away from both hands and feet. "What do you want to work with?"

Mouth open, Jess caught onto the guard's trick before his tongue could respond. Offering a point, Jess took the offered hammer and box of nails and then grabbed a board. Since it was supposed to be twenty feet high, likely he would have his hands on a hundred more boards before the day was through.

A pair of nails sticking out of his mouth, Jess searched for his partner on the other end of the group of men. When their eyes connected, Jess lifted his hammer in a form of a wave. Slim returned the gesture with the tip of saw going to his forehead like a salute.

He almost smirked. Here were twenty criminals, some tried and true killers, and in their hands were some form of weapon. Giving his hammer a twirl, Jess debated launching it toward the nearest guard's head. Somehow his thought was plucked right out of his skull, for the warden rose up above the rubble and thrust a finger his way.

"I see the heat hasn't sapped you of temptation, Harper. Remember, I'll be watching all of you."

"Lucky us," Jess said under his breath, silenced further by the warden's newest speech getting its full start.

"Attention men!" Hermiston's voice rose loud enough to be heard over his triple handclap. "While you may have already heard that there will be a different group at work each day, I want to make it clear that your duties will not merely fall on another man's shoulders tomorrow. You will work hard, you will work obediently, and you will work until you are told to quit. Any questions?"

Silence followed, so menacingly still that the prisoners' droplets of sweat didn't even dare to fall.

"Oh, that's right. No one is allowed to speak. Remember that! Now get to work!"

Jess frowned. Hadn't he already pounded a board in place? The two men closest to him digging a deep hole for a support post, Jess would have the pounding all to himself. That suited him just fine. There would be no silent arguments to be had if a partner put a nail in the wrong place. The frown went deeper. Maybe there was one partner he wouldn't mind having. But Slim was too far away.

Again Jess looked, gauging the distance. Ten men stood between them. It would be impossible to be able to work side by side. But then that old Harper determination began to chew on his insides, so intense that it couldn't be ignored. Maybe because it wasn't just built on his heart, blood, flesh and bones. The foundation was fear.

Hermiston said it, as had the guard. Tomorrow there would be another group sweating his life away over this wall. Considering Slim's status as a troublemaker, the no-talking edict, food and recreation being cut off, this might be their only chance at meeting up for a long, long time. Hammering a nail in place, Jess slowly moved around the men with shovels and then added a new board to the section that hadn't been touched yet. A second nail going in to secure it further, Jess took another step closer and noticed that Slim was doing the same kind of maneuver.

Encouraged by how quickly they were coming together, Jess leaned toward another hammer's ear. "Lemme have your space and you go back where I started."

Eyes widening in fear, Shultz exchanged places with Jess so fast that if it had been done while a guard was mid-blink, it wouldn't have been seen. Now if Slim could just take over the next man's position, they could be side by side. Fortunately Slim didn't have to make much of a request. With the man's physical appearance much weaker than Slim's, all Slim had to do was give the man a look made out of midnight's worst shadows and he made a quick dart in reverse.

They were together, really together for the first time in a pair of weeks.

While Jess felt like giving the warden a smug smile and the loudest inner "Hah!" he could muster, he kept his mouth tight as he searched for Hermiston's position. He hadn't noticed their trick. With a prisoner on the end making some kind of mistake with his saw, the warden's eyes and subsequent balling out were only given to one.

Yet he couldn't forget about the guards. Darting his eyes from left to right, Jess saw that they were focused more on each other than what the prisoners were doing. So far they were safe. But that could change if they heard something other than the wall being rebuilt. It was making quite the racket, and as Jess put more emphasis on the nail he was working on, he opened his mouth. Nothing came out, but it was getting harder to not let a few words jump from the tip of his tongue. As he reached for another nail, he saw Slim's lips working through the same struggle.

While they had seen men suffering the consequences of the no talking order, it was impossible to not want to speak. They were best friends, tortured in multiple ways, and the desire to communicate was stronger than whatever torture was yet to come. It had already been noted that the all the building utensils working at once was making quite the racket. That should dim down their tones to nothingness. But even if it didn't, it might not have mattered. They were best friends, tortured in multiple ways, and the desire to communicate really was stronger than whatever torture was yet to come.

Slim gave the guards a long stare before he bent his head toward Jess and gave his partner the softest whisper his mouth could perform. "How you making it, Pard?"

Jess gave his own stare, and since every rifle seemed to be occupied with passing water buckets around, he felt it safe to answer. "I'm still breathing. Although the way this place stinks out here, I wish I wasn't."

"Yeah, they say it can be smelled from fifty miles off."

"How about if we run that far and find out?"

Slim squinted his vision into the bright light for Hermiston. While he had his back turned observing the depth of a posthole, Slim still shook his head. "No. Bullets run faster."

"I reckon. How're you making it?"

He tried to merely shrug, but it wasn't enough. "It's hard. I can't sleep."

"Me either. What about Deuce, Davey's been worrying."

"He's hanging on."

"Good. Davey'll be right glad to hear that. If I can find a way to tell him without getting whipped, that is."

The fear of the whipping posts suddenly looming above them, both men turned toward their ominous presence. The view should have quieted them, prevented them from daring to take their discussion further, but the partners had been too long separated, too long stuck in their own hated silence to let the fear of being stretched between two wooden poles win.

"Oh, I thought you should know," Slim said, and startled by the sound of his own whisper rising, he quickly looked for retaliation's hardest punch, but Hermiston and the guards were still out of reach. "I was out on work duty a week ago. Timeon's dead. I buried him."

Jess stared at the long row of graves and shivered. "That coulda been me. Dadgum. You coulda buried me."

"What do you mean?"

"When the escape was more'n just talk, Timmy wanted me to join him."

"Sure, Jess. Just so he could see you die."

"I don't think so. He wanted the money too much to let anything happen to me. But the way things turned out, not even a no-good killer like Timmy coulda kept me from taking the same hard fall as he did."

"Well, I don't usually wish death on a person, but he's an exception. I'm glad I was the one to throw dirt on his face. For you and the Gila monster."

"Thanks."

The words waned then, allowing their focus to be on the work in front of them. Even with the heat searing a pattern between the dark and light stripes on their skin, Slim and Jess got into a steady rhythm together. It was as if they were back on the ranch, although no amount of imagination could put them anywhere other than at Yuma's south wall. But because of their experience working side by side, and the comfort this position gave them, it wasn't long into the afternoon that their section of the wall was far advanced than all of the others. It was this reason that made them gain Hermiston's attention. It was another reason that made them keep it.

Jess' height unable to reach up to hold the board where it needed to go, Jess' hand went down to tap Slim on the shoulder to make the silent request for assistance. When the board started to slip, both hands crashed into it to keep it from falling. But that only released the hammer from Jess' clasp. It fell on his foot.

"Dadgum, this hot, polluted pile of…"

"Jess."

"Don't scold me, Slim. I reckon Yuma's gonna pull some not-so-clean words outta your mouth before we're done here."

"Huh?"

His head ducked in fear of being caught. "They coming?"

Slim repeated his earlier squint to where the guard's drank while the prisoners suffered. His failure was to not search for Hermiston. "No. What'd you say?"

"Obviously your mind ain't here. Dadgum, how do you do it? I'd like to be somewhere else, too, but I ain't, every time I close my eyes and open them again I'm still in Yuma, and here you are lost in some daydream someplace. Tell me, what's she look like?"

"Sorry, Jess. My mind's been prone to wander farther than it should because of the no talking rule. But it's not on a woman."

"Dadgum. And I wanted to see a shapely redhead."

"You really think I'd tell you about a shapely redhead if I was seeing one?"

"Dadgum," Jess said, and while expecting to see a rare piece of mirth in his partner's eyes, there was nothing but shadows. That was to be expected in Yuma, but among all this sunlight? There should have been something other than darkness to see and it frightened him. "Really, Slim. What's wrong?"

"With us being separated, I never got to tell you what's been happening at home. I got a letter."

"Even whispering, your tone says it ain't good."

"It's not."

"Out with it. I can't feel much worse than I do now."

"Mort's been missing for several weeks. Wiley, too. Both are presumed dead, according to Jud."

"Dadgum. Mort's dead?" Jess' hammer went still, as did something inside. "Then there ain't any hope in us getting out. Not in anything anymore."

"It might not be all lost yet. Lon Matthews has come up from Denver to take Mort's place."

"He ever marry up with Fran?"

"I remember reading something about it in the gazette awhile back."

Jess gave his sweaty face a rough wipe to hide his laugh. "That's gotta be close to bedding down with a Gila monster."

"Apparently Lon doesn't mind."

"I reckon. But since I came to know one real well, I know what kinda bite to steer clear from."

"I guess some men just have to learn from experience."

The humor fading as fast as their energy, Jess' shoulders slumped so low he wouldn't even make the attempt to hammer in the next board. "Slim, you think there's any hope in us getting outta here?"

"There's always hope, Jess. It gets hard to find at times, but it's still there. Here, let me get that for you."

Jess gladly gave up his hammer and took up Slim's saw. "I don't wanna lose that hope, Slim. Somehow, you're able to hang onto it, but me? I've given up so many times that I…"

"Jess, a man can only truly give up once. When he dies. As long as you're still alive, there's hope."

Jess' head bowing, he saw the splatters of red against his stripes. There was no point wiping at them. Some his, some belonging to others before him, they would be there until he left Yuma. Whenever that would be. But didn't Jess already know that answer? His sentence was sixty years. Unless a grave came for him before that span was up, there was no other way. They were never getting out of here. Mort was dead. Their only hope was dead.

And once the wall was rebuilt, the two partners would go their separate ways once more and they would never see each other again.

Their only hope was worse than dead.

"I'm sorry, Slim. I just can't…"

"Sherman! Harper!"

Jess felt like a coward, scrunching down behind the section of wall they had rebuilt. "Oh, no!"

Placing a protective stance around his partner, Slim stared at the warden's thundercloud. As dark as the billows looked, Slim wondered if Hermiston had been watching them for more than the last few seconds of their whispered conversation. Likely it didn't matter. After all, they were caught, but then again, the number of lashes just might equal the length of their disobedience.

Slim tried not to wince. He wasn't sure he could handle that many.

Guards on them in ten seconds, Slim's fight became knocked flat by a rifle barrel clopping over his neck. They would drag him to the whipping posts by his boots. Jess' response stopped before he could even spring to his feet, a hand grabbed at his collar so roughly, his striped shirt ripped into more than one piece and fell to the ground. Well, that earlier thought was finished. His prison shirt wasn't going to last sixty years. But as his bare skin began to prickle with the heat, Hermiston's laughter flared into his ears hotter than Arizona's sunshine ever could.

"Looks like you lost your shirt, Harper. That's just going to make the whip's sting even worse. You ever have a sunburn slashed into?"

He tried to kick the man, but as he was being pulled away by a guard jerking his arms behind his back, his foot hit nothing but air. A few minutes later, Jess thought they were going to leave him suspended in it. The man that was whipped before him taller than Jess by several inches, Jess' feet were left to dangle as his arms were stretched out between the two posts by the rope that had been left there.

His shoulders screaming their displeasure, the sound was forced through his teeth. "Dadgum!"

A whip cracked against the ground. "I thought I made myself abundantly clear. No talking!"

It was a hard twist of his neck to view Hermiston, but Jess withstood the pain. "I'm already being punished for it, so why not keep it up until I die?"

"You're like no other prisoner I've ever seen before, Harper."

"Maybe because I ain't a guilty man."

"Oh, you're guilty all right, otherwise you wouldn't be strung up like last year's forgotten scarecrow."

He made such a point, that Jess stopped thrashing against the binds that held him. But in a way, that made the pressure on each shoulder worse. Moving, his muscles were performing a fight. Stilled, he thought both shoulders were going to give in to the strain and dislocate. Just when he thought his ears were going to hear a double pop that would blend into a painful scream, a wooden platform was thrust under his feet, making up the difference of his height. The ache in his arms no longer as severe, Jess let a long sigh pour out his mouth.

"How many lashes, Mr. Hermiston?"

Now Jess' breath was instantly held and he forced his eyes back on the warden.

"I haven't decided yet. But what I have decided is that I'll give the punishment myself. To both of them. You guards are dismissed." Noticing the hard bend of Jess' neck to view him, Hermiston slowly walked to Jess' front. "What do you think of that, Harper?"

"I can hardly stand it."

"The more you disobey my orders, the longer your punishment will be."

"I've already been given sixty years."

"They should've given you life."

"And if that life ends right now?" Jess waited, anger and fear making his pulse leap against his chest so hard his breaths had to work even harder to catch up. "Well, what're you waiting for?"

"I can't whip a man that's unconscious. I want Sherman to go first."

"Why?"

"So you can listen to every lash and know what's coming for you."

"If I could get loose, you'd sure know what's coming for you."

"You don't frighten me."

"Only because I'm tied to these posts."

"Don't think another moment on it. You're not being let loose until it's over. And after that, maybe never. You'll never make it sixty years, Harper. In fact, I was just thinking that maybe I should order your tombstone to be chiseled."

"You don't frighten me."

He cracked the whip on the ground. "Then why did you jump?"

"I didn't."

Again Hermiston attacked the dirt. "You did. Admit it Harper, you're scared of me, of the whip, of Yuma."

It was true, but Jess shook his head, forcing his answer through his gritted teeth. "No!"

"Liars, cheaters, killers, robbers, they never win. And you, Harper, are going to learn this lesson very, very badly. And right about now. Looks like Sherman's waking up."

Eyes jumping to the man next to him, Jess' body began to quiver as he watched Slim's lashes flutter in their rise, and then as the blue became solid, he held his breath. Slim was going to get it first, he said. Jess knew he could endure just about anything thrown at him, but how could he endure this torture when he was powerless to stop it? Even though Jess knew every kind of fighting tactic the west had ever created, no kind of fight could save Slim right now. He was going to have to take it, blow by blow. And then maybe die when it was over. Someone else already had. Would he? Would Slim?

The whip rushing to the ground to prepare its velocity, Jess' entire faced winced tightly, waiting in anticipation for the first strike against Slim's back.

And then it came. Again and again and again.

.:.

"You dead, Son?"

No strength to even raise his head from where they had tossed him, Jess barely parted his lips against the floor of his cell. "No. But I wish I was."

"You're the strongest man I've ever met."

"That's kinda odd to say. I feel like a cut up rag."

"It's true."

"Don't talk to me, Davey. I don't want you to get whipped like this."

"No guard's in the hall right now. They're fetching supper."

"Oh. I ain't hungry. You can have my share."

"Thanks."

He wanted sleep, unconsciousness, death, but he couldn't succumb just yet. "Davey. We got one more second?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Slim said that Deuce is still among the living."

Tears started to rain over the wrinkles. "You don't belong here, Jess Harper."

"Tell it to someone that can get me outta here. Please, tell it to someone that can get me outta here."

The corridor's door thrust open, a heavy stomp echoed down the hall. "I heard voices! Who was talking?"

Silence so intense that Davey's teardrops hitting the floor were heard more than one cell over, the guard searched for a guilty expression. "Who was it?"

No one dared to blink, no one even offered a point, but the guard still strode to the right place.

"No matter, I bet I can guess."

Hearing a key turning into a lock—wasn't that the tune of his?—Jess tried to admit that he didn't care, but his face scrunched with terror as a boot landed next to his head.

It was no use to request it, to even think it anymore. No one would ever get him out of there.